The optical measurement of light spot position and colour detection is used in many robotic control and vision systems. Range cameras, used for three-dimensional (3D) imaging, exploit geometric arrangements (such as active optical triangulation), properties of light propagation, and light interference to extract distance shape. Optical triangulation relies on the measurement of the position of a focused light beam impinging on a linear or bi-dimensional sensor. Active triangulation is based on the sine law: knowledge of two angles of a triangle and one side (baseline) fully determines its dimensions.
The principle of active triangulation is illustrated in a system 10 shown in FIG. 1. The system 10 includes a lens 12 for receiving light beams 14a,b (termed collected beams) generated from a projected beam 16. An optical position sensor 18 receives the light beams 14a,b after passing through the lens 12 emanating from the intersection of the projected beam 16 with a reflective surface at 19a and 19b. 
As described above, the knowledge of two angles and one side of a triangle fully determines its dimensions. The two known angles in system 10 are α1 and α2 of a triangle 20 bounded by the projected beam 16, the collected beam 14a and a baseline 22. The angles (α1, α2) are of the projected beam 16 and the collected beam 14a relative to the baseline 22, respectively. The angle α2 of the collected beam 14a is measured using the lens 12 and the optical position sensor 18 that measures a length L as the distance between the collected beams 14a,b on the sensor 18. The length L is related to the angle α2 and therefore a displacement Z based on the sine law as discussed above.
Many devices have been considered in the past for measuring the position and/or colour of the collected light beam. The devices generally belong to one of two main groups: continuous response position sensitive detectors (CRPSD) and discrete response position sensitive detectors (DRPSD).
A CRPSD is defined as a class of position sensitive detectors that determine/calculate the centroid of a light distribution, which may include stray light components in addition to a desired light spot. A DRPSD is defined as a class of position sensitive detectors that sample and analyse the entire light distribution to determine the position of the desired light spot within the light distribution.
CRPSD are generally based on lateral effect photodiodes and geometrically shaped photo-diodes (wedges or segmented) such as disclosed in A. Makynen and J. Kostamovaara, Linear and sensitive CMOS position sensitive photodetector, Electronics Letters, Vol. 34 (12), pp. 1255–1256, June 1998 and in A. Makynen et al., High accuracy CMOS position sensitive photodetector (PSD), Electronics Letters, Vol. 33 (21), pp. 128–130, January 1997 both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
DRPSD are generally implemented using an array of photosensors where they are read out serially by metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) switches or a charge coupled device (CCD) such as disclosed in F. Blais and M. Rioux, Real-Time Numerical Peak Detector, Signal Process., 11(2), 145–155 (1986) incorporated herein by reference.
CRPSD are known to measure the centroid of a light distribution impinging on its resistive surface to a very high level of resolution and speed. However, accuracy is reduced when spurious light is present together with the main light distribution. DRPSD can achieve, with a peak detection algorithm, higher accuracy levels since the distribution is sampled and hence available for processing but at a slower speed relative to a CRPSD.
The use of a combination of a DRPSD and one or more CRPSD(s) for position and colour detection has been proposed in Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 6,297,488 issued Oct. 2, 2001 titled “Position Sensitive Light Spot Detector”, incorporated herein by reference. In the systems proposed in U.S. Pat. No. '488, CRPSD(s) is/are used to calculate a rough estimate of the light distribution centroid position and the DRPSD is used to finely calculate the actual spot position.